Medusa: Eternal Journey with Holy Light
by gorgeousshutin
Summary: Story encompasses Vol 19's final story: "Garden with Holy Light", along with the cameo appearance both Ash and Eiji have in Yoshida's other series, "Lover's Kiss". Has sci-fi elements (cause how else could this possibly work?). Dedicated to those tasteful, passionate individuals whose love for this timeless classic has persevered to this day. Update speed depends on interest shown.
1. Chapter 1

**Medusa: Eternal Journey with Holy Light**

Banana Fish characters belong to their various owners.

Story encompasses Vol 19's final story: "Garden with Holy Light", along with the cameo appearance both Ash and Eiji have in Yoshida's other series, "Lover's Kiss". Has sci-fi elements (cause how else could this possibly work?). Dedicated to those tasteful, passionate individuals whose love for this timeless classic has persevered to this day.

* * *

 _You're not alone, I'm with you. My soul is always with you._

 _We'll be united, no matter how far apart._

 _You are my best friend._

* * *

For a moment, they merely stood awkwardly watching each other.

At their close proximity, the blond was privy to the gradual change of expression as betrayed by the man's bespectacled dark eyes: the frantic hopefulness that got cut short by painful disappointment, before all that passion cooled into weary resignation.

Beside them, the blond's like-aged brunet companion arched a quizzical brow at the man's odd behavior.

"Pardon me," managed the long-haired, bespectacled man in Japanese-accented English. "I mistook you for someone else." His gaze lingered briefly upon the blond's broad chest, upon the cartoon sun printed upon his t-shirt. "Sorry."

"No problem," said the blond, offering a easy, polite smile. He watched on as the Japanese man rejoined his Asian companions in the broken, stumbling steps of the wounded; he kept on watching inconspicuously until the group was to disappear completely off view.

"You can change back now; keeping your eye-lids puffed up for too long like this can cause swelling."

The speaker was the brunet, looking young and buff and completely at home in the sunny tourist town that was Cape Cod. Only his eyes, now looking deeper set and more wolfish than just moments ago, set him apart from the jolly folks currently crowding this sunny dock.

"As expected, not even he can recognize you with your current crypsis chops," drawled the brunet, sweeping his longish hair back from his pronounced hairline with a hand. "People can talk about souls and emotional connections all they want. But, at the end of the day, it's appearance that they judge you upon. Your soul mate is no exception . . . and neither are you."

That hand, broad and brazen, now clasped itself upon the blond's shoulder.

"You used to loath it when I so much as lay a finger upon you." The brunet leaned over to whisper in the blond's shell-like ear. "But now that I'm young again like this . . ." He trailed off at seeing the blond's change of expression - or rather, complete change of face.

Gone were the puffy lids, revealing his green eyes to be upturned and feline-sharp. Those eyes now were cutting sideways and at the brunet like a pair of daggers.

"What a change." Not the least offended, the brunet merely marveled at the now exquisitely defined contours of his companion's face, which seemed to make even his light hair appear all the more golden. "This real face suits you much better."

"You're the one who've changed," muttered the blond, sullenly adverting his gaze. "You never were quite so hard to make angry before."

"Life-altering changes tend to quell a man's fire." The brunet's wolfish eyes grew soft with something akin to wistfulness. "Even your hatred for me from before has dulled as per our current situation.

"Yet still that torch your carried had burned brightly on throughout these past seven years."

The blond jolted under the brunet's increasingly sympathetic gaze.

"I am responsible for your current dilemma," admitted the brunet, matter-of-factly, "so I can understand how you don't want to hear this from me. But, this secret guardian angel nonsense has dragged on for far too long: the only "enemy" you need to protect him from now, is time. As it stand, you're merely making the poor man suffer on unnecessarily out of your own cowardice-"

"I'm pasty as fucking jelly," exclaimed the fair-complexioned blond aloud while stalking off and towards the sandy shores. "Gotta get more sun." Already, he was taking his shirt off, the lithe build revealed drew appreciative gazes towards him from the tourists cluttered around.

The brunet alone remained darkly solemn amidst the dock's merry, sunny-basked crowd.

Ring . . . .

Producing his cellphone, he leaned over the dock's rail to accept the call while keeping his eyes on the blond treading the shore.  
"Mr. Lee, I've been expecting your call.

"Like I said, the old men on Hong Kong's Executive Council can prove difficult. But, at the end of the day, all you need is a hold over the owner to keep his dogs from barking. So, as long as the Lee Clan has resource enough to contribute to the Chinese communist party . . .

" . . . if that's the way you want to play this game, then it looks like you'd end up one of us sooner rather than later.

"You don't mind? Mr. Lee, you know there's no known way to control the transdifferentiation mechanism as induced by Medusa, or we'd both be making billions off this gene-editing wonder already.

"Once the process has been triggered: you could potentially revert all the way to becoming a baby. Good luck on running your clan in that state.

"Yes, well, me and the boy were exceedingly lucky in this regard."

"Why of course he's difficult, and stubborn too. How else could he possibly be?

"There really aren't no way to tame a wild lynx, not even when it's been reborn as jelly.

"Worse, this cat appears to have been stalling since at the age of nineteen. IQ 200 notwithstanding, he's actually far less mature than any twenty-six year old should be when it comes to dealing with what we call life.

"As his 'creator', the fault is mine completely. So yes, it does look like it's again up to Papa to step in and make the big decisions for the damned brat yet again . . ."

* * *

"Sing . . . I meant what I said before. I'm not unhappy. I am grateful for the time I got to spent with him back then."

To that, Sing Soo-Ling, currently seated at the adjacent sofa from him drinking his coffee, simply gave him with that pained, exasperated look that had become a signature expression of his in recent years.

"Eiji . . ." The man hesitated, briefly, prior to forcing out those cruel words he felt he needed to say. "How many times have you mistaken some random blond kid for him just this year alone?"

Okumura Eiji, feeling the question hammer at his heart, could offer no reply to that.

"Including this time in Cape Cod, it's been five times already that I know of." Putting down his cup, Sing pressed on in his merciless manner. "I understand how you do not wish to forget the past, but your refusing to let go of the past is eating into your present. It has been seven years, Eiji; Ash Lynx has been dead for seven years already."

"I know that, Sing. I-"

"Then why do you still hang on to this delusional hope? You can never, ever find him among the living again, Eiji, not in Cape Cod, not here in New York, not anywhere in this world! Why can't you accept this?"

Sometime during the exchange, tears had blurred Eiji's vision. Thus, he could not tell just know how he ended up getting enveloped within Sing's embrace, feeling the younger man's chiseled musculature crushing against his smaller frame, along with the hotness of the latter's tears seeping though where the shirt covered his shoulder.

"Ash always wanted what he though was the best for you back then," croaked Sing, sounding more like the angsty boy he once was and less the assured man he had since matured into. "Do you think he wants to see you chasing after shadows for the rest of your life?" Eiji, knowing the truth in Sing's words, along with what direction this conversation was heading towards, mentally prepared himself for what he knew he must do next.

"Eiji . . . I also meant what I've said before. I want to make you happy; I want to-"

"Sing, I would be very happy to see a talented man like yourself make the most of your life."

Just like that, Sing's crying ceased; it was not long before he slowly backed off and away from him.

"You've paid heavy dues to get where you are today. " Eiji made a small show of soothing his wrinkled clothing, all to avoid looking his friend in the eye. "If anyone deserves to fly high over New York, it's you-"

"Did Yut-Lung say something to you?"

Re-aligning his glasses, Eiji saw that Sing had since re-erected his steely defenses.

"Trying to have you kick me out so I'd be back in his clutches . . . huh? " Smirking cynically, this powerfully built twenty-three year old man looked nothing like a mere boy now. "Going back on his word and trying to run my life despite promising me otherwise. How like him."

"The last time Lee-san had contacted me was seven years ago, to apologize for being indirectly responsible for Ash's murder," said Eiji, carefully keeping all traces of bitterness out of his voice, even at "indirectly". No matter how sincere the man had seemed when offering both apologies and condolences in the wake of Ash's demise, fact remained that Ash's old nemesis was the one to have manipulated Lao against Ash out of sheer spiteful pettiness, resulting in the dual deaths. It was only Sing's unlikely friendship with Lee that had forced Eiji to mask his lingering resentment against the man. "I found out about your opportunity to take over the New York branch of the Lee enterprise from someone in the know at News Week." His voice softened with heartfelt sincerity. "This seems like a huge opportunity no matter how I look at it. You really should spend more time with your organization's people to work out the specifics and make this happen."

"Instead of hanging around your house all the time re-reading Ash's old documents, right?"

Sing's question had a stinging note of accusatory resentment to it. Since expecting that resentment, Eiji merely faced the other man with his civil, impenetrable Japanese smile.

"You really have changed," muttered Sing after a significantly long moment had passed. "I never though I'd hear you talk about the triad life like it's a legit way of living, Eiji." Weary defeat - if not outright disappointment - was evident in his voice.

"I haven't changed," replied Eiji, smile deeping in spite of himself. "I've always loved the darkness along with the light. I'm not the innocent angel you and the others have all painted me as.

"I'm not who you want me to be, Sing; I'm not even the one you really want."

His statement - softly voiced but blunt nonetheless - had Sing jolting as though kicked.

"Sing," Eiji spoke on before the other could. "It's okay. The one you truly want to direct your feelings towards has never been me to begin with." Reaching into his pocket, he produced a photo, which he handed to the other man. "It has always been that brilliant ray of light that had illuminated both our lives back then." Sing's narrow eyes widened in awe at what he saw.

"Ash's picture from back then . . . " Which should have remained locked away in a box like it had been for the past seven years, was what Sing had left unsaid.

"Behold, the final addition to the exhibition tomorrow," revealed Eiji, trying to sound as lighthearted as possible.

Sing slowly looked up from the picture to study his face closely. "Eiji . . . you . . ."

"I'm not over Ash; I never will be," admitted Eiji, plainly. "But . . . I think I can finally let myself get over his death, and truly look back on all that has to do with him again." He stepped up to beside his old friend. "It's an improvement, isn't it, Sing?"

" . . . what will you label this piece?"

" 'Akira', namely dawn."

Huddled together, like the boys they were years ago, the old friends regarded the golden youth as immortalized upon the photo - that evanescent ray of light now forever out of their reach - in wistful mourning.

* * *

 **To be continued . . . ?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Medusa: Eternal Journey with Holy Light**

Banana Fish characters belong to their various owners.

* * *

Within the black limo's luxuriant, shadowy interior, half a phone conversation could be heard:

" . . . yes, the jetlag still bites. I just came back from the other side of the Globe, so you can surely understand . . .

"No, this supposedly divine espresso you've instructed my secretary to make for me doesn't really help at all (sipping sounds) . . . though, a funny thing happening earlier on did manage to brighten up my day.

"Do you know? Sing actually took the initiative to call me just now. Yes, looks like he's finally ready to consider seriously taking over the New York branch - bet Eiji has finally fortified his friend zone . . . but, that wasn't what makes this funny as hell.

"Sing . . . that brat; he actually said on the phone: 'You better not lose your head over that Italian boy toy of yours I keep hearing about - I don't appreciate having to run the New York branch with the emperor's evil concubine breathing down my neck!'

"I know, right? (laughter) If Sing only knew . . . (calms breath)

"How things can change . . . why, I remember back in the day, _I_ was the one who was considered _your_ boy toy, and you my elder by far.

"I was so certain then our partnership would have ended in either your death or mine within mere months.

" . . . oh wait, you did die; though not by my hand, and not for me.

"But, without your death and what came after, these last seven years would've been completely different, for me and for everyone else.

"The Medusa Project - that which has now become the Lee Clan's trump card against major global powers - would not have happened.

"Monstrous though you were back then, there always was this method to your madness. And, that thing you did after we all thought you'd suicide-ed . . . some of us having survived that time do owe you favors still.

"Unlike some jellified but still untamable cat I can mention, your trusty long-time partner is not of the ungrateful sort. So, my being fresh off a fifteen hour flight notwithstanding, trust in me to accomplish this 'Mission Impossible' to your satisfaction, Monsieur Golzine."

The lights brightened as the limo moved, revealing a thick, half-opened pamphlet currently held in one of the speaker's fine-boned hand, slim wrist currently revealed from under a rolled-up Chinese-style long sleeve.

The folder was titled "Okumura Eiji Photography Exhibition".

The limo, glossy and sharp under the bright sun, made its ways languidly down the luxury-vehicle-cluttered 5th Avenue, heading towards Greenwich Village.

* * *

/"Data collection in progress: 98% complete.

/"All signs normal on Medusa Subject 03."/

Submerged within a cylindrical tank located within a dark, unlit lab, with innumerable tendrils streaming out and about, the gloriously aglow entity referred to as Medusa Subject 03 appeared, at first glance, to be a giant jellyfish.

A closer look will reveal the "jellyfish" to have a humanoid core long of limbs and elegant of torso. It was a naked youth with innumerable electrode wires attached to his body, currently curled in a fetal position.

His fair complexion was notably fluorescent in a way that no human flesh should be, to the point that his outgrown blond hair floated alit like a halo around his exquisite face.

/"Data collection completed.

/"Medusa Subject 03's Status Report Incoming:

/"Rate of muscular malleability - same.

/"Rate of regeneration - stable.

/"Rate of growth - undetermined."/

Medusa Subject 03's upturned eyes, closed at first, slowly opened to reveal bright jadeite-green irises shining like those of a lynx in the night.

* * *

"Have a safe trip home, Akira-chan!" waved Eiji, watching as Sing's Rover Mini disappeared down the road, carrying their spirited young visitor away and off to the airport. The sounds of boisterous, childish bickering still audible through the breeze was proof that Sing and the girl had hit it off in spite of their ages and backgrounds being miles apart. Given time and opportunity, the intergenerational friendship they now share could potentially blossom into something even deeper down the road.

As per her namesake, Ibe Akira really was a ray of light: a pure, untainted light that may well prove to be the only thing that could cleanse away those stifling shadows darkening Sing's heavy, weary heart.

Eiji knew, also, how none amongst the living could brighten his own shadows, which would likely stick with him for the rest of his days.

And, as if to further dampen his mood, a passing vehicle sounded the following song from its radio:

/"Ain't no sunshine when he's gone, only darkness everyday . . ."/

Sighing, Eiji turned around to head back into his house . . . and found himself stunned into stillness at whom he found poised at his front door waiting for him.

". . . it's been a long time."

* * *

"Slowly, you don't want to inhale the crumbs . . ."

Inside what looked like a baby's nursery, what looked like a buff brunet young man barely out of his teens was caring for what looked like a toddler who could barely walk.

The toddler was wearing a wristband with the words "Medusa Subject 02" printed.

The young man was currently feeding the toddler baby biscuits. His wolfish eyes, watching the child eagerly eating cookies out of his hand, were softened by melancholy.

" . . . I suppose you still cannot remember anything even now?"

The toddler, an Asian child made cartoon-ish by his monk-bald round head, mere blinked at the brunet with innocuous dark eyes while munching on the snacks.

"I see." Exhaling heavily, the brunet man picked the toddler up, and placed him back in the confines of a large crib. "Back behind bars where you along." He then turned around to leave.

"Pa . . ."

Stopping in his tracks, the brunet slowly turned around to again to face the toddler, now calling out to him from behind the crib's bars.

"Pa . . . pa . . ."

"You know, there is this Chinese saying that Mr. Lee had taught me a while back," said the brunet, watching the young child with an expression too world-weary for his young man's face. "It goes something like 'taking the villain as your own father'. Who'd thought I would actually get a actual demo, and from a Chinese, no less?"

At his words - or maybe not - the toddler giggled from where he laid on his back, looking as content as he was obviously sleepy. To the brunet's expression somehow dimmed further at the cherubic sound.

"Boy . . . aren't you Ash's friend? Even after I gave him everything I had, Ash never once thought of me as being anything but a dragon he was trying to slay. I was the monster who destroyed you in an utmost gruesome manner upon our very first meeting, and here you're calling me 'Papa'?"

Walking back up towards the crib, he leaned over to stare down upon the toddler, now appearing fast asleep.

"And you were the leader of Chinatown?" He let out an involuntary chuckle then, its sound low and rasped. "No wonder you people need the Lee Clan to run things for you.

"You . . . just hurry and grow back up already. Everybody is looking forward to the day when you're again six feet tall and ready to avenge yourself; yes, even your actual murderer, namely me."

The baby was already snoring, the comical sound of which contrasting the brunet's melancholic tone to jarring effects.

"I used to think nothing of bottom-dwellers like you, but now . . . it's been getting to the point where I am actually looking forward to seeing you back on your feet pointing a gun at me for what I've done back then.

"It certainly is _not_ because of something as trite as guilt; no, I've long since given up useless things like guilt and conscience in order to survive this world. Could be because I've already invested so much in you throughout the past seven years . . . yes, kind of like how it was with Ash back then . . ."

"I hope you aren't implying how you'd like to rape the poor guy in his current baby form like you did me, Golzine."

"Ash." Turning towards the door, Dino Golzine - looking barely old enough to vote - faced the blond youth entering the nursery with a neutral mask of an expression.

"Everything you had to give me back then sure came with loads of lies and abuses," stated Ash Lynx, still appearing to be in his late teens, as he stalked past the rejuvenated Golzine and towards the crib. "Yes, you did save me twice, for which I suppose I should be grateful." Producing a plushy crafted in the image of a cute blond angel, he leaned down to place it inside the crib beside the toddler, who snuggled against it without opening his sleepy eyes. "But Shorter's blotched transdifferentiation process and subsequent lack of growth is entirely _your_ fault."

Even clad under a designer's shirt, the muscles on Ash's back were noticeably taut with tension. Listening to him, Golzine's mouth flattened into a straight horizontal line.

"If it turns out that he is permanently stuck in this sorry state, I will personally blow your brains out before any of the others could object. You just keep that in mind, Golzine."

Without sparing the man a single glance, the blond was already turning away ready to leave.

"Going somewhere?" asked Golzine, eyeing Ash's sleek getup, along with the telling presence of his handbag. "Maybe to stalk Okumura Eiji under disguise in the name of 'protecting' him again?"

Ash visible stiffened at those words, but still walked on and away.

"Don't bother. The Japanese is currently in the company of someone who's far better equipped than you when it comes to keeping someone safe."

Stopping at the doorframe, Ash then turned slowly around to face Golzine with green eyes gone wide.

" . . . you've sent Yut-Lung to Eiji?"

* * *

"Thank you for humoring my unannounced visit. I'm happy to see you're doing well for yourself these days."

"I'm sure you're doing far better, Lee-san."

Willowy figure reclining sultrily against the sofa, Lee Yut-Lung - who had remained long-haired and androgynous despite having matured through the past seven years - smiled at his host from above the raised cup of offered tea.

"I saw your exhibit mentioned on the news even in Hong Kong, Okumura-san," said the exotically beautiful man. "You've obviously put in a lot of hard work to made it in this tough field."

"Thank you," Eiji smiled civilly back at the Chinese triad leader, all the while guessing at the other man's motive for being here. Could it have to do with Sing finally willing to take over the Lee Clan's New York branch? Out of a corner of his eyes, he saw, through the windows, a number of Yut-Lung's goons in black standing guard ominously around his house, and wondered how he was going to explain this to his neighbors later on.

Nothing good ever came out of Lee Yut-Lung approaching him before, and this time appeared to be no different.

"I especially love the piece titled 'Akira'. You've captured a side of Ash so rarely seen by the rest of us."

That had Eiji's smile faltering: who was Yut-Lung – who caused Ash's death – to be saying this to him in such a thoughtless manner?

"Lee-san." He heard his own his polite voice frosting over at the edges. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"I've come seeking your professional help," replied his visitor, readily. "Are you aware of the Turritopsis dohrnii?"

"The immortal jellyfish," said Eiji, recalling this trivia from a nature program he had watched on TV with Sing during one of his many sleepovers. "It is an animal capable of reverting back to its younger self in response to certain adverse conditions."

"The Lee Clan has kept a specialty lab focusing on the in-depth studying of this creature located right here in New York," said Yut-Lung. "I would like to request your service as a top photographer to create a photo journal of the lab and its subjects for promotional purpose and record keeping."

Eiji shook his head. "I'm afraid animal photography - especially of minuscule aquatic creatures - is out of my league. I specialize in human subjects."

"There are human subjects involved in the lab's scientific studies."

Yut-Lung's casually voiced words set off all sorts of alarms in Eiji's head: the last "scientific study" with human subjects that he had the (mis)fortune of getting caught up in was the Banana Fish fiasco.

"As someone who specializes in taking pictures of people off the street in their natural moments, I'm afraid I simply won't be of much help to the Lee Clan or its lab." He then sipped his tea in pointed silence, waiting for Yut-Lung to leave.

Yut-Lung, however, turned out to be surprisingly persistent. "Okumura-san . . . okay, I'll be frank. I've actually come to you today to resolve this massive problem seven years in the making."

"What are you talking about?" asked Eiji, feeling goose bumps raising on his skin at the mention of "seven years". Just what did Yut-Lung want from him?

Undeterred by Eiji's increasing distrustfulness (one mixed with an apparent undertone of hostility, even), Yut-Lung faced him with what seemed to be a mild - and courtesy-based - apologia.

"Okumura Eiji-san, even back when we were enemies, I've always believed that the love between you and Ash Lynx was the real thing." Putting down his tea, the androgynous Chinese ditched the homme-fatale mannerism and straightened up to properly face the guarded Japanese more solemnly. "I am, in a way, responsible for you being separated from him throughout these last seven years. So, I've taken it upon myself to resolve this situation, hopefully by today."

"You got Ash _killed_ seven years ago," stated Eiji, his fists clenching from the anger he felt at Yut-Lung's words – especially at the ridiculously insensitive wording. "Just how do you suppose you can resolve such a situation short of getting me killed too, Lee-san?"

He saw how, instead of turning defensive, Yut-Lung actually scratch at his smooth chin, as though trying to find the right words to voice what he was about to say "Actually, Okumura-sa-"

And the windows abruptly exploded in showers of glass shards, as what once was Eiji's immaculately kept living room got rendered a war zone amidst the sounds of violent crossfire and loud Chinese cursing . . . .

* * *

 **To be continued . . . .**


	3. Chapter 3

Banana Fish characters belong to their various owners.

 **Note:** Here it is. One day past the Feb deadline, but hey, this is a relatively long chapter ;-) Please see Endnotes for more.

* * *

Waiting in the massive line-up leading towards the Departure Gate, a man and a child were engaged in boisterous, childish bickering, all along, until sudden . . .

" . . . but seriously, thank you, Sing."

"Huh?" Taken aback, Sing blinked in incomprehension at Akira's abrupt change in tune. "For what?"

"For staying with Okumura-san for throughout these past seven years." Likely too bashful to say this to his face, the teen girl spoke without her dark eyes glancing off and at the TV located to their side, currently playing some 24 hr news broadcast. "For helping to shoulder his pain, and keeping him afloat. "

"Hey, now." Feeling self-conscious, Sing rubbed at the back of his head as heat slowly flushed up his face. "What's with talking so grown up when you're still just a brat?" The man now was fidgeting about in this rather boyish manner. "Ummm . . . hey, c'mon. Crack some joke about me and my outdated Rover Mini, or how I look like a massive ape-"

"If it's you, then I'm okay with it," stated Akira, further surprising the worldly man with her display of uncanny, age-defying maturity. "I'll leave Okumura-san in your . . ." And she froze, as though time had made a still life of her small body.

"Aki-" Alarmed, Sing, too, turned towards the TV the girl had been watching, and saw a news update that had his blood running cold.

/ . . . further reports on the violent daylight shooting that demolished a Greenwich Village residential unit and leaving the neighborhood shaken. The owner of the targeted property has been confirmed as rising photographer Okumura Eiji, who was believed to be at the scene during the shooting. By eyewitnesses' account, he was seen entering the house with a young Asian woman just moments before the attack began . . . An update. The person seen with Okumura was apparently Chinese Entrepreneur Lee Yut-Lung, rumored to have Chinese Triad connections. Police has now confirmed this incident to be gang-related . . ./

* * *

 _So cold, he thought to himself. Empty coldness - a sharp contrast to the suffocating, sympathy-driven warmth he had been subjected to for the past seven years - now was stabbing into every nerve of his being with needle-like sharpness. Still, he ran on, sprinting up the steep slope of that towering mountain, against snow and storm, and straight for the frosted top. For there he saw the Lynx standing poised upon ice, aloof, alone and freezing._

 _"Ah, wait . . ." he gasped from exertion as he powered onwards, against the massive odds situated between the two of them. "Wait for me . . . I come . . ._

 _"You don't . . . have to be . . ._

 _" . . . cold . . . alone . . . anymore . . ._

 _". . . Ash . . . !"_

* * *

/" . . ICU set up complete . . ."/

/". . . readying life support series A-15 to D-13. . ."/

" Out of the way!" barked Ash, pushing his way past the gathering of lab personnel as he sped towards the stretcher transporting the wounded Asian along the hallway. "Eiji!"

"Calm down!" snapped Golzine, failing to hold Ash back even with his body young and virile again. "You're interfering with the medical staff-"

"Who CARES about Yut-Lung's goons?!" Pushing aside one of the medics pushing the stretcher along, Ash grabbed onto Eiji's hand; his heart sank at feeling its coldness. "Eiji . . . hang in there!"

" . . . no need . . . save me . . ."

For a moment, Ash thought he heard wrong. Yet, it was indeed Eiji's mumbled voice coming through the oxygen mask; his eyes were close as though in sleep, or in prayer.

"Eiji . . ." Ash felt himself freezing up in incomprehension-driven stupor. "What are you-"

" . . .seven years," rasped Eiji. "Living while dead . . . ends now." A blissful smile graced his pallid face despite the physical agony he must be under. "At last, I can finally go . . . where he is . . . to that cold mountaintop . . . warm him up . . . at last . . ."

Each and every labored, mumbled word hammered at Ash's heart with an almost physical brutality, debilitating this powerful, passionate man into a mere hollowed-out husk.

He stood motionless as the lab personnel pushed Eiji's stretcher away from him and into the ICU.

"The medical facilities we have here are superior to even Presbyterian's." Golzine's voice –- a voice Ash used to hate more than anything -– now was an alien, distant sound to his ear. "Okumura will be well-taken care of . . ." He paid Golzine no heed, so fixated was he upon what Eiji had revealed.

Disjointed as Eiji's words were, Ash had immediately picked up on what his friend was talking about: Ernest Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Even now, Eiji still remembered that story he once told him, where the lonely beast froze alone on top of that icy mountain.

Was that how Eiji had envisioned his afterlife to be like? The legendary Ash Lynx, cold-blooded in life, killed in cold-blood, suffering alone in this grand, solitary limbo of his own making?

Or . . . perhaps . . . ?

"-calm your wheels, Sing!"

Footsteps signaled the appearance of yet another stretcher in this hallway, this one carrying his (former?) adversary, whose refined beauty now was rendered a bloody mess.

"I'm fine," insisted a wild-haired Yut-Lung from where he spoke into the cell phone clasped in his one non-injured arm. "This isn't the first time I've been assassinated. There's no need for you to come rushing over to see me - what'd you mean you're only worried about Eiji?!" He had to briefly move the phone away to let out a pained - likely injury-related - cough. "Your crush is well-taken-care-of by the best practitioners here . . . no, you don't have the clearance to know where 'here' is since you've yet to become my right hand like I've been asking you to! Look, the Vietnamese forces are likely roaming downtown trying to cause trouble with all my relations right now, so stay put at the airport. Shao Ei and his group should be there about now, so stick with them. Don't try coming to us, I'll come to you when the time-hello? _Hello?!_ " He moved the phone away, having apparently been hung up on. "That brat . . ." He ceased at finally noticing Ash. "Umm . . ."

"You know to keep Sing in the dark about the Medusa Project," said Ash, in a tone so calm and conversation, that he startled even himself. "You know, that once he gets involved, there will be no turning back for him." He stepped up and towards the stretcher-bound Yut-Lung. "He will, like you and every other member of the core staff, be subjected to endless kidnapping and assassination attempts from global powers, after the Project's revolutionary bio-technology."

"Ash . . ." Yut-Lung glanced up at him with dark eyes widened. "Look, I honestly didn't know Eiji and I would get attacked-"

Bam.

"You've kept Sing away from the dangers of Medusa because you see him as your friend, and you want to protect him" stated Ash, hovering over Yut-Lung after having clasped a hand soundly against the stretcher. "So why can't you people just let me protect my friend?" Vaguely, he noticed how the surrounding goons had tensed up at the aggression he was displaying to their leader, and how Golzine had since stepped up (likely for the purpose of keeping them down). "I have played dead these past seven years just so Eiji could move on. Why are you and Golzine still trying to drag him into this dangerous mess that is my life?"

"Ash, have _you_ moved on?"

With that one question, Golzine had extinguished Ash's self-righteous rage - by shattering his (already) shaky conviction.

"It's been seven years for you and him both." The man - who boasted a literal old soul behind his young body - proceeded to take his former charge down with practiced ease. "You claim you've feinted death these past seven years hoping Okumura Eiji would move on. Yet, throughout this time, you've also been _stalking_ Okumura non-stop in the name of 'protecting' from the violence of our wayward state. Always lingering in his surroundings under numerous ridiculous disguises that would almost unfailingly grab his attention . . . including Cape Cod, how many close calls have you had just this year alone?"

"Golzine . . ." started Ash, who then realized he lacked the words to follow through with a rebuttal.

Since being put into his current state, the blond had been able to alter facial appearance by manipulating fluid distribution within his body. However, his hair color and general build remained static, thus keeping whatever disguise he wore resembling his old self. It had been five times Eiji had discovered and approached him on the streets just this year alone, and god knows just how many times his friends had been quietly impacted by suspicious glimpses . . .

"You claim you want to protect him . . . have you ever considered just how maddening it has been for Okumura Eiji to be continuously subjected to 'ghost sightings' of you through all these years?" asked Golzine, who had, by now moved between Ash and the stretcher-bound Yut-Lung. "The fact that he would rather follow you into death than to receive treatment from gun wounds speaks volumes about the emotional damage your death act's been doing _both_ you and him all along."

"Damn you . . ." growled Ash, hating the man for having thrown the guilt of the matter right back at him. "What do you and your _concubine_ even care about what goes on between Eiji and I anyway? Hadn't you two done enough damage already?"

Ash saw that Yut-Lung had the good grace to go downcast at his wording; Golzine, bona fide villain that he was, merely gave him a sneer that actually made his young, clean-shaven face appear rakish.

"Really, Ash, is this kind of talk even necessary? You should know by now that Mr. Lee have long since succumbed to your guilt-tripping tactics in the matter of your self-imposed 'death.'" Yut-Lung looked like he wanted to say something, but was silenced by a gesture from Golzine. "As for me . . . well, Okumura is relevant mostly because of the effect he has on you." The man then pointed a finger down and at Ash's nose tip. "Or, have you forgotten yourself . . . Medusa Subject 03?"

Even as Ash slapped the offending hand away, his gaze had lingered briefly upon Golzine's wristband - labeled "Medusa Subject 01."

"Remember your reason for staying on with the Medusa Project," drawled Golzine, clearing having caught his look. "Should we have Doctor Wong again lecture you on the detrimental effects your emotional instability has been having on your test results?" His voice darkened with a weathered, ominous tone that betrayed the seasoned kingpin behind the youthful facade. "Remember just _whose_ interest is at stake should our work fail to advance."

Ash, knowing of the truth in Golzine's words, could only bear the talk-down in silence.

"What is keeping Mr. Lee at the door?"

The feminine alto had the men all turning towards the elegant, shorthaired Asian woman now emerging from the ICU's opened door.

"Doctor Wong," greeted Golzine, already motioning for Yut-Lung's goons to move his stretcher through the ICU doors. "How is Okumura Eiji doing?"

"Move Mr. Lee into Partition B," Dr. Wong instructed the goons, before facing not Golzine, but Ash. "Listen, Eiji is delirious from the pain and blood-loss. He has lost much of his vision and mobility, but is still persisting on refusing treatment." She held the blond's cloudy gaze with her somber dark eyes "I could sedate him first before giving him a much-needed blood transfusion; but, to drug him in his current weakened state . . ."

"I understand," muttered Ash, getting exactly what she was really telling him to do, between the lines. "The deception ends now," sighed the blond in resignation, prior to straightening his stance into one of square-shouldered determination. "I will go in, and reveal myself - the whole truth about my current self - to Eiji. I will get him to accept treatment."

To that, the Doctor's eyes widened in apparent surprise . . . and hope. Ash also heard, from beyond the ICU doors, Yut-Lung's distinctively melodramatic grasp.

"Ash . . . are you really sure?"

"It's time; I won't run away from him anymore . . . Nadia."

What remained of Nadia Wong's clinical front had by now melted off into a proud, big-sisterly beam. Smiling himself, Ash listened for a while the singular theatrical applause sounding from behind his back, before cutting it off at the source by elbowing the sarcastic Golzine right in the ribcage.

* * *

 _"Seven years._

 _"Seven years of suffering alone in a world where everybody feels sorry for me . . . because I was without you._

 _"Living in that city where you've lived and died, I see shadows of the boy you were, day in and out –- in the background, amidst the crowds, upon the horizons._

 _"They're calling to me to come to you, to this place you are now._

 _"The kindness of others - their insistence that I go on living - is what's been keeping me away . . . and you alone._

 _"I'm sorry for having kept you waiting for all this time . . .!"_

 _Smiling, he wrapped his arms around the Lynx, relishing in the coldness of its snow-covered pelt._

 _"I'm here, at last." managed the man, all the while conscious of the slowing of his own pulse and heartbeat. "You won't ever have to be alone . . . no, we won't ever have to be alone anymore, Ash."_

 _Only the blizzard - white, shrewd, uncaring - surrounded the two of them, walling them in upon their icy sanctuary._

 _"So it's okay now . . . I'll never leave this mountain, or return to the living ever again._

 _"For it is in death that we are reunited._

 _"In death . . . we are . . ._

 _"In death-"_

"Eiji, I'm here."

That voice, coupled with the firm, definite grip upon his hand, shattered his immaculate surroundings like hammer against glass. Losing his footing upon his blissful fevered dream, Eiji found himself in acute pain as he landed hard upon reality.

" . . . told you not to . . . save me . . ." protested the wounded man, lifting his heavy eyelids to glare up and at whomever that gave him such a rude awakening. "You . . ." He then went agape at what he now saw.

"It's me," said this unmistakable, one and only Ash Lynx, leaning over such that his striking blond features clashed against the sterile ceiling above to jarring effects from Eiji's point of view. "I'm not dead, I'm here and alive . . . Eiji."

* * *

 **To be continued . . . . ?**

 **Endnotes:** The mentioned "Shao Ei" is actually Sing's baby-faced secretary/bodyguard from Yasha. While I have the entire story outlined to the end, it takes more time and effort than I can currently afford to write the scenes out. So . . . if you really want to see this continued, please comment/review either on AO3 or FFnet to let me know you're still reading. Update speed – if this is gonna get updated at all – will depend on the level of continued interest shown.


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